A Forum for Orthodox Jewish thought on Halacha, Hashkafa, and the social issues of our time.

Monday, January 20, 2014

Insularity or Engagement?

Typical street scene in Bnei Brak

Many of my
critics ask me why I don’t focus on the problems in the Modern Orthodox
community. In particular the charge is made about my posts dealing with Off the
Derech (OTD) children. (I dislike that term as it automatically casts these
young people in a negative light. But I use it for lack of a better term.)

The truth is
that there probably are a lot more young people who go OTD in Modern Orthodoxy(MO).
I don’t know the percentages, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they were huge. It
is an unfortunate fact that far too many people in this community focus far too
much on the ‘modern’ and not enough on the ‘Orthodox’.

By contrast it would seem that Charedim fare far better in this department. They focus entirely on the ‘Orthodox’
and have complete disdain for the ‘modern’. Again, I don’t know the numbers but my guess
is that compared to MO, their rate of OTD is comparatively low. On the surface
it should not be too surprising. If one is raised in an environment that goes
to great lengths to insulate their children from all outside influences, then
of course there will be less attrition than from a community that not only
allows outside influences, but actually encourages it if it doesn’t violate
Halacha. And it is sometimes hard to draw a line between what violates actual
Halacha and what doesn’t.

Once we
engage with the outside culture crossing lines can easily occur. There are also
a lot of grey areas that may be permissible but violate the spirit of Halacha.
This can foster a slippery slope climate into becoming OTD.

It is also
true that there are a lot of Modern Orthodox Jews who are observant for social
rather than ideological reasons. Which makes it more conducive for a child to go OTD when exposed
to the general culture in large doses.

But before
the Charedi world can pat itself on the back, I noticed a very disturbing
statistic about one of the most Charedi and insular cities in the world. From Marty
Bluke’s blog, The Jewish Worker:

10% of the
Charedi teenagers in Bnei Brak are OTD. So
says Mishpacha (Hebrew Edition) in an interview with people who work for the
city of Bnei Brak in this area. What is sad is that they say that many times
the kids not only go OTD but become criminals, addicts, etc. and that their
efforts are not to bring back the kids to religion but to turn them into
functioning members of society.

How could
this be? How do people that are so insulated end up with one in ten children
going OTD? If the average family has ten children, that means that every family
has one OTD child. Perhaps one can begin to explain this by an excerpt from an article
by Jonathan Rosenblum:

EVEN ON THE
INDIVIDUAL LEVEL, I'm not convinced that more mixed communities do not offer
their own advantages. A friend of mine once commented to me, "I raised
half my children in Tel Aviv and half in Bnei Brak, and on average, I have to
say that those raised in Tel Aviv turned out better. In Tel Aviv, I raised
them; in Bnei Brak the street raised them." What he meant – at least in
part – was that in a mixed community, the children had to work on their
identity and figure who and what they were. In the all chareidi community,
everything was just assumed, without ever being thought about. The former
produces people whose first question is, "What does Hashem want from
me?;" the latter those who ask, "What will the neighbors say?"

I do
remember being told by one of the world’s most prominent marbitzei Torah, as we
chatted on a transatlantic flight, that
the most insular and tightly controlled Torah communities have the highest
incidence of dropouts. And when I mentioned this observation a few hours
later to another equally prominent Torah figure, as we waited for our baggage,
he looked at me as if to ask why I was taking up his time with something so
obvious. (Emphasis mine.)

If one
combines this with Rabbi Moshe Grylak’s latest editorial (which is part of a continuing series of editorials) about Charedi
parents throwing their OTD children to the streets, it adds up to a shocking
situation. My guess is that even if more MO children go OTD, very few are
abandoned by their parents like that.

Typical Modern Orthodox Teenagers

All of this
raises some obvious questions. Among them the following. Is it in fact better
to be raised in the type of insular community that is typical of the Charedi
world? Should parents seek to avoid any contact with the outside world because of
its negative influences? Or is it better to follow the path of Modern Orthodoxy
with its philosophy of controlled engagement with the outside world? If the
latter is the case, then what about all of those MO children who go OTD? And
there are many!

I think the
answer is not in the numbers as much as it is in the actual philosophies of the
two worlds. One that views insularity as
the ideal and the other who views interaction as the ideal. There are actually two worlds in Modern Orthodoxy.
One is the social world which is very large. And the other is the philosophical
world which includes its own right and left and is probably a lot smaller.

When I speak
of Modern Orthodoxy as being the better of the two options, I am speaking about
the Hashkafa of Modern Orthodoxy. If that were the guiding principle of all
Modern Orthodox Jews, there would be a lot fewer dropouts. Why? Because Modern Orthodoxy believes that engagement with
the culture is a good thing.

The benefits
of that are twofold. One is that we can appreciate God’s world in its larger
context (outside the halls of the synagogue, study hall, and focus on pure
ritual) and enjoy what the surrounding culture has to offer in the realm of the
Halachicly permissible. But perhaps more important is that inoculation works
better than insularity.

If properly
raised to honor God and his Torah and observe his commandments, then being
exposed to the culture in that context will enable parents to teach their
children how to enjoy the permissible while avoiding the impermissible. From
the perspective of Modern Orthodoxy, doing God’s will by following Halacha is
number one. Once a child is imbued with
Yiras Shomayim, he can be taught by his parents how to engage the world and to
better deal with any challenge that may come up.

While it is not foolproof, I think it should be obvious by the statistics and anecdotal evidence
quoted by Jonathan Rosenblum, and Rabbi Grylak that a philosophy of controlled exposure
to the culture that is one of the hallmarks of Modern Orthodoxy clearly trumps
the almost total insularity of the Charedi world. The only reason that many MO children dropout
is not due to its philosophy but due to the fact in all too many MO families - observance
is more social than ideological.

I recently
saw a Modern Orthodox Bat Mitzvah video where there was very little ‘Mitzvah’
and a lot of culture that was anathema to Judaism. The girls were dressed immodestly
and they were all dancing to the sexually suggestive music being played by a disc
jockey they hired. Unfortunately these people had little interest in following
the letter of the law, let alone the spirit of the law. There was nothing
Jewish in that video at all. And I’m sure that most of those young people come
from observant homes – socially observant homes.

I believe
that a lot of MO Jews are like this. I don’t know the numbers, but I fear they
may even be the majority. It would not surprise me if more than a few of those
kids went OTD at some point in their lives. But that does not speak to the
validity of Modern Orthodoxy as a Hashkafa.

It is my
belief that those of us who are serious about the Hashkafa have the fewest
dropouts of all. A lesson that the Charerdi world should learn from us - if it
isn’t too late.

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About Me

My outlook on Judaism is based mostly on the teachings of my primary Rebbe, Rabbi Aaron Soloveichik from whom I received my rabbinic ordination. It is also based on a search for spiritual truth. Among the various sources that put me on the right path, two great philosophic works stand out: “Halakhic Man” and “Lonely Man of Faith” authored by the pre-eminent Jewish philosopher and theologian, Rabbi, Dr. Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Of great significance is Rabbi, Dr. Norman Lamm's conceptualization and models of Torah U’Mada and Dr. Eliezer Berkovits who introduced me to the world of philosophic thought. Among my early influences were two pioneers of American Elementary Torah Chinuch, Rabbis Shmuel Kaufman and Yaakov Levi. The Yeshivos I attended were Yeshivas Telshe for early high school and more significantly, the Hebrew Theological College where for a period of ten years, my Rebbeim included such great Rabbinic figures as Rabbis Mordechai Rogov, Shmaryahu Meltzer, Yaakov Perlow, Herzl Kaplan, and Selig Starr. I also attended Roosevelt University where I received my Bachelor's Degree - majoring in Psychology.